As of Late: August 2012

It's the third Thursday of the month... As of Late with Critty Joy!

Lately... I've been back to work and four LONG days of work have felt like several weeks have passed... is it really only Thursday?

Lately... I've become a wife who cans!  :-D  I've canned peach jam and I have tomatoes coming on Saturday so I'll be canning tomatoes this weekend.  This is literally a life-goal coming true for me and I am so proud of myself.

All dressed up and ready to be given as gifts!

Lately... I'm getting back into my books on tape while I'm driving all over the Western Slope.  Any suggestions?

Lately... I'm remembering how COOL braille is, and thankfully, I'm remembering braille pretty well.  I have a fully braille-reading student this next year so braille will be coming out my ears this year!

Lately... I've been planning my first baby shower to take place in mid-September and I'm really excited and a little nervous about it.  Please send all your great baby shower ideas my way during the next few weeks.

Invitations sent - Check!

Lately... I'm missing the Olympics, but its nice not to have the television on 24-7 like I might have while the Olympics were on.

Lately... I've found that a clean bed sheet can double as a tablecloth.  A tablecloth will definitely be on my Christmas List... but I feel very resourceful and economically responsible in the meantime.

Beautiful black tablecloth

Lately... I am REALLY looking forward to college football starting.  These weeks of being back to work without college football are really some of my hardest weeks of the year.  I know that's awful, but when school starts, college football begins and I look forward to every Michigan game every week.  Just 16 more days til Michigan's season opener... 16 more days...

Michigan v. Alabama September 1, 2012 7:00pm CST
GO BLUE!

What have you been up to lately?

Our Sweet Animals

I absolutely LOVE our sweet animals!

My love for them has been on my mind and my heart SO much this week because Chris and I both went back to work this week and I see so much less of my wonderful animals than I did just last week.  :-(

So, in honor of my love for my animals, today I want to share pictures of these beautiful, loving, athletic, snugly, sweet, thoughtful, playful, wild, tame, trained, helpful, soft, lovable animals.  Thank you, Lord for entrusting Lexie and Lloyd, Your creatures and Your creation to our care.  We love them SO much.

There's our 4-year-old little, lovable Lexie Girl

There is our 1-year-old playful, laughable Lloyd Car

When we put them together, our life becomes full of responsibility, craziness, energy, fun, cuddles, chasing, petting, licks, tricks, tails, paws, fur, wags, wiggles, whiskers, jumps, leaps, prints, and laughter...

My hubby surprised me with a flower the other night... Lexie decided the Baby's Breath was for her... then she just sat next to the rose as though she wasn't doing anything wrong.  The leaves of the rose still have teeth marks all over.

I always figured that my first two children would share a room... since we opened our guest room the other day, Lexie has claimed it as her own while Lloyd enjoys our bed.

 Who could not love these two?

I sure do!

Treasuring the Present: Rainy Days!

Yesterday was a rainy day in Rifle... and it was wonderful!

I can't remember the last rainy DAY I've had living in Colorado -- granted I've traveled all of the summers I've lived here... but the mountains don't have full rainy days, we have rain storms.  Rain storms quickly move in, and quickly move out but do not slowly linger all day.

Source: sxc.hu via Anna on Pinterest

Yesterday, it was raining from the moment we awoke til long after dinner.

The temperature dropped, I needed a long-sleeve shirt, our house cooled off, and it was perfect back-to-school weather.  In a stroke of excellent timing, it was also Chris and my first official days back at work.  In addition to the rain, my day was made much more enjoyable by the beautiful rose with which my hubby surprised me Sunday night.  I got to look at it all day while I was working!

Working is always better with a gorgeous red rose from the man I love!

I was glued to multiple laptops all day (58-plus emails exchanged in addition to other planning and organizing) next to an open window where I could watch and listen to the rain all day.

Source: Uploaded by user via Kristan on Pinterest

Do you enjoy the rain?  I don't know if I could handle daily drizzle, like Seattle has, but some nice full-day, lingering rain storms are wonderful!  We're really hoping for a really hard, cold, snow-filled winter.  We NEED it, in my opinion, both meteorologically and mentally.  We live on the Western Slope of Colorado... we're built strong and tough and we're not afraid of the elements -- we respect them, but we're not afraid.  We need a year so full of snow that we are overly grateful to make it to the Spring.  We need to be reminded what a tough breed we are.

Source: picturesofwinter.net via Terri on Pinterest

Yesterday's 60* rainy day was a great start.  :-D

Goodbye, London Olympics

These past few weeks have been so much fun cheering Team USA in so many events.  I will admit, I was hard-core Olympics Girls for about the first 10 days... and then I hit a little Olympic overload.  That is why it is so nice the the Summer Olympics are four years a part... I will have plenty of time to recover and be overjoyed for the 2016 Olympics in Rio in 4 years.

Its crazy for me to think back and think of the Olympics marking the passage of time.  Eight years ago I watched the Summer Olympics in Canada (it was much harder to get very excited about them when all of Canadian television was covering the Canadian athletes).  It was the summer between my Sophomore and Jr. year of college and I went to Canada with my college boyfriend to spend a week with his family at their summer cottage.  That was only eight years ago!

Four years ago I watched all of the Olympic action while I was working on my second Masters thesis at my parents' home in Michigan.  I was gearing up for my last semester at Vandy, and I spent about three weeks at home between my summer classes ending and the fall classes starting.  I wanted to watch every moment of the Olympics, so I told myself I could only have the television on during the daytime if I was also doing research for my thesis.  I got a lot of work done in those 3 weeks and I watched a lot of Olympics.  I remember watching all of Michael Phelps' eight gold-medal-winning races with my parents.  A few of the really close races had all of us yelling at the television and cheering out loud.  That was only four years ago!

These Olympics were the first Summer Olympics that I watched as a married woman.  These were the first Summer Olympics that I think my hubby watched more than an hour or so.  He didn't know the Olympics could be so addicting until I had it on all the time.  This is also the first Olympics where Olympic coverage was available 24-7, plus facebook and twitter and the internet... we had facebook four years ago, and the internet eight years ago (also, facebook was invented eight years ago... but my school didn't have it until later that fall), but I don't remember these social media playing such a role in news and in sharing the spirit of the Olympics.

Where will I be in 2016 when I'm watching the Rio Olympics?  Which athletes will be back?  Which new stars will appear?

Until then, Summer Olympians, thanks for a great two weeks.  Thank you for years of training all leading to a few days of competition.  Thank you for representing our country and for doing your best.  Thank you for those of you willing to do it again, starting tomorrow, preparing for 2016.

I'll sign off with some of my favorite Olympics commercials:













Did make it through those without crying?  I didn't.

Adventures in Canning

I'm one step closer to checking something off my bucket list.  :-D

One of my goals is to be a wife and mother who cans fruits and vegetables... and anything else I can learn to can.

Jars sanitized - Check!

Growing up, my mom canned every summer and fall -- tomatoes, applesauce, mincemeat, green beans, strawberry jam, yellow-wax beans, raspberry jam... and I'm sure there were more.  We had cabinets FULL of canned fruits and vegetables in our basement, and I always knew if something happened that we had to hide in the basement (tornado, nuclear attack), we had plenty of food.

20 lbs of fresh, ripe Colorado peaches - Check!

My true goal would be to have a garden someday where I grow my own veggies, and then can them -- but so far, Lexie (my kitty) and I have killed every plant in our care.  Thankfully, life is long and I have many things to learn.

Sugar, Pectin, Wax, Space, Motivation - Check!

Yesterday, I took my first step toward becoming a canning wife.  I have canned with my mom, in my mom's kitchen, but yesterday was my first time canning by myself and in my own kitchen with my own materials.

20lbs of Colorado Peaches
6 batches of peach jam
6 hours of work
24 12oz jars of jam
12 8oz jars of jam
First canning endeavor -- SUCCESS!

36 jars of peach jam! Whew!

To be honest, we don't use a lot of jam, but Hubby and I both really liked the idea of having jars of jam on hand for gifts.  We tasted the jam, and we agreed it is worth sharing.  (I won't give away baked goods that I don't think taste good).  The jam tasted great! :-D

First canning adventure completed!

My favorite part of canning: The knife cuts don't matter!

I am horrible at chopping, slicing, dicing, mincing... anything you can do with a knife and a cutting board.  I try so hard to make even cuts to have my veggies the same size, but so far, I am hopeless!  When I was chopping the peaches, the knife cuts didn't matter!!  The chopped peaches were going into a big kettle and mixed all around and turned in to jam -- no one cars about the different size of the chopped peaches!  YAY!

Lexie tried to help in any way she could... luckily when the jars with hot jam started coming out, she made herself scarce.

"Mom, you don't need a highlighter to can... let me get this out of your way!"

"Behind these jars, no one can see me!"

Oh, Colorado...

There are some things that very uniquely happen in Colorado.

The below clip is one:


This is clearly a bear after my own heart.  He doesn't want berries or fish... he wants chocolate!

I suppose it could also happen in Alaska or Montana... but, in this case, it was Colorado.

What I'm Wearing - Cardinals' Game

So, a number of bloggers I know post weekly accounts of "What I'm Wearing".  These posts are when bloggers post a picture of them in a cute outfit and the writers talk about how they put it together and what a great deal it was... all kinds of fun stuff like that.

I have never posted a "What I'm Wearing" post -- with the exception of maybe talking about my wedding dress -- mostly because I don't think of myself as having a sense of style or a fashion sense, and certainly not one I would brag about or expect anyone would want to emulate.

Well, here is my first, possibly my only, "What I'm Wearing" post.
This is "What I'm Wearing... to a Cardinals' Game".

I wrote last week about Chris and me attending a few Cardinals v. Rockies.  Chris always wears Cardinals' apparel to Cardinals' games and he loves it when I wear Cardinals' apparel too.  I totally understand where my hubby is coming from because I LOVE it when he (and I) wear Michigan apparel on Michigan game days.  So, without further ado... What I'm Wearing to a Cardinals' Game:

Chris' mom bought me the Cardinals' dress a few summers ago, and the only size she could find was an extra-large.  Many hot-water washes and high dryer cycles later, the dress fits me... but its actually supposed to be pajamas.  I've worn it a few times to Cardinals' games, but I've always been really self-conscience knowing that its supposed to be a night-gown.

After a few times of wearing the Cardinals' dress with a strapless bra, I tried it with a sport's bra, and felt much more comfortable... but I still was hesitant about how short the dress was.

I don't own leggings, but I've always thought the leggings look was cute.  When Chris and I were visiting friends in Georgia, a friend was wearing leggings -- or so I thought.  When I complimented her on them, she said they were under-armor workout capris. What an awesome idea?!?!  Especially for going to a baseball game!  I don't think I could pull off workout capris for going to work, but for summertime, and a baseball game -- TOTALLY!

So, that's the outfit -- Cardinals' pajama dress, sports bra, and Costco workout Nike capris.  I felt SO cute in this outfit!  Every time I caught my reflection, I thought, "Gosh, I feel much cuter than I look."  LOL!

So, which is better?  To look cuter than you feel or to feel cuter than you look?  In this case, it felt so great to feel so cute in this fun, Cardinals' outfit.